Following the discovery of two security exploits within Google Wallet, the Vice President of Google Wallet and Payments, Osama Bedier, released a statement reassuring readers that Google takes "concrete actions" to protect its users. The statement further indicated that, in response to Wallet's security scare, Google has put prepaid card provisioning on hold, at least until a permanent fix is issued (which should happen "soon").

Update 2/14/12: Prepaid card provisioning has been restored:

Yesterday afternoon, we restored the ability to issue new prepaid cards to the Wallet. In addition, we issued a fix that prevents an existing prepaid card from being re-provisioned to another user. While we’re not aware of any abuse of prepaid cards or the Wallet PIN resulting from these recent reports, we took this step as a precaution to ensure the security of our Wallet customers. If you are unable to access your previous prepaid card balance for any reason, please contact our toll-free support for assistance.

The statement goes on to assure customers that, should their phone be lost, or used to make an unauthorized transaction, toll-free assistance is available. Those interested can find the full statement at Google's Commerce blog here. Of course, we'll be on hand with any new details as they emerge.

Comments

Kyle

Couldn't Google do something simple like requiring people to sign into their account if the Wallet app has the data cleared? Make it so they only way the prepaid card is linked to the app is when a password is applied. Seems easy enough.

To my understanding, this isn't done because Google Wallet is linked with your specific device, and is not connected to your Google account.
I am interested to see what fix Google is preparing, and if Wallet will ever require attachment to a Google account.

Jaymoon

"To my understanding, this isn't done because Google Wallet is linked with your specific device, and is not connected to your Google account."

Which sucks! If you want to sell/lose/return your phone with an available balance on the prepaid, oh well! Spend the money or sign in on another NFC phone, or else you lose it.

Topgun

Well you don't lose it. I just had this happen to me in which I changed phones and you just call them up then they transfer it to the other account. Its actually pretty painless.

Germian

Well, it's better they address that before they get sued for an incredible amount of money.

ske

Do a search on how to get a Good Prepaid Card setup. Looks like basic $10/hr QA missed out on this one. Google, please fire the production manager. What a joke. 100's of mentions, not one link to setup a Google Prepaid Card. I am sure I will stumble upon it one. I hope we get back Natural Selection someday. Corporatism, dumb users and no accountability is ruining the species.